San Diego tweeters take over Wine Cabana on 2/21/09 (Photo courtesy @jimmyweee)

The San Diego Tweetup’s February gathering set new attendance records last Saturday, as more than 200 Twitter aficionados converged on the Wine Cabana in Old Town. This was a significant jump over the first SD Tweetup, held in April 2008, when only about 30 attended.

The event, which is usually held monthly, had been sorely missed since its last large gathering in November at KPBS Studios. (No complaints here about the December SD Tweetup, as 25 of us were included in the audience of The Price is Right, and yours truly won a treadmill and $1000.) This time, there was no attendee cap – and tweeters from all over San Diego County turned out in force. We drank wine, played Rockband (courtesy of assistant organizer @DowntownRob), and tweeted the #sdtweetup hashtag all the way up to the #2 trending topic on Twitter for several hours.

Organizer Jenn Van Grove (@jbruin) did another bang-up job in finding a venue large enough for such a group, and sponsors willing to fund the good times. Much love to Network Velocity (@nvelocity) for sponsorship. See Jenn’s blog post for a comprehensive Twitter roll of attendees, as well as links to several Flickr sets of event photos.

All of the San Diego Metblog writers that I personally know, I met on Twitter. If you didn’t already know this, San Diego has a great, enthusiastic and powerful Twitter community.

Currently, the city is ranked 13th worldwide for its Tweeples’ activity.

The top Twitterers in this region are also some of the top in the world. Twitter Grader refers to them as San Diego’s ‘elite’ Twitterers. @marismith, for instance, is ranked #1 in this region and in the top 100 of all ranked users.

Naturally, many of the people most active on Twitter are ‘social media mavens,’ so I personally suggest that if you’re looking to keep your Twitterstream fresh, diverse, and relevant, be careful not to jump in by following only the top Twitterers. You’d be missing out on a lot.

Mix it up with great San Diego attractions and venues like @gaslampquarter or news media like @sdut. Or how about both with @sdtips which combines local travel tips, news and a lot more. Or journalists like @dodgemedlin who you can always count on to post topical and timely links.

There are personalities to follow here too like @chriscantore who’s a fount of local music knowledge and as entertaining ever. Or @sddialedin if you’re looking for recommendations on the local music scene–in real-time, by the way, which often means 2 a.m. for her. If classic rock is more your bag, you can’t beat @sdradio for his encyclopedic knowledge.

If you’re a morning person and preternaturally perky, you’ll enjoy the good natured posts of @marismith (see link above), @sugarjones, and @lotusamy.

I suggest you chase those food posts down with a beer post or two from @stonegreg of Stone Brewing and @beermolly.

If you’re interested in San Diego’s biotech industry, follow @sdbn. And if you’re interested in the future and health of its fast food industry and leading spokesperson, follow @jackbox (who’s apparently in a coma but you can count on his staff to keep his account updated.)

It really helps to get out and meet your Tweeps in person, and for that, you need to follow @jbruin who organizes San Diego TweetUps like the one this Saturday night. http://www.meetup.com/sdtweetup/ (I wish I could go but I have a ‘thing’… I just love saying that.)
This list is just a start. I’ll try to share more links to local San Diego Tweeps in the future. And I encourage you to share your favorites by commenting below.

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